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The Tuesday Takeaway
A second baseman or shortstop fields a ground ball and throws it to his double-play partner at the keystone. The other middle infielder catches it with his foot on the bag. As he begins to remove the ball from his glove with his bare hand, the ball squirts away. The runner going to second is out. The batter is safe at first. And life goes on.

Well, that was the case last year. But as we’ve learned over the past two days, it’s not the case anymore.

Confusion first arose during the Rangers-Red Sox game on Monday, when a 4-6 force play at second base turned into an error on shortstop Elvis Andrus. As Rangers manager Ron Washington told reporters, the league informed clubs during spring training that runners would be called safe on any failed transfer, after which replay would be initiated to determine whether the fielder controlled the ball while in contact with the base.

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Heh, an interesting observation from that highlight. But if you look at the official definition of a catch, here is the money line: "In establishing the validity of the catch, the fielder shall *hold the ball long enough* to prove that he has complete control of the ball and that his release of the ball is voluntary and intentional."

It would appear that Gordon satisfied that criterion, since he dropped the ball during a "voluntary and intentional" attempt to remove it from his glove, after holding on to it through the collision.

The Hamilton play was different in that he caught the ball and went directly to his glove to remove it, at which point the ball popped out. Gordon clearly established possession: He hit the wall, fell to the ground, took inventory, and got up, all with the ball in his glove. Then, when he went to remove it, the ball squirted away. There's a much shorter timeframe between when the ball hit Hamilton's glove and when he removed it, which appears to be the distinction, invoking the "voluntary and intentional" clause of in the catch rule.

It's also worth noting that, based on the statement from MLB in the Dallas Morning News post, Buckminster should probably not have made the "out" call, because MLB wants indisputable evidence from replay to justify a catch. By making that call, Buckminster prevented Smoak from going to third base, which I think is what McClendon argued after the call was overturned. Umpires are sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place on that one, in terms of getting the runner hung up between bases, but it seems like MLB wants them to err on the side of no catch.

By the way, the Gordon play is now embedded so that they can be compared more easily.

I was pretty sure the clearly established possession was why. But I guess my concern is where do you draw the line on that in a play, especially if you're erring on the side of no-catch. It seems counter intuitive to err on that side unless there is proof that there has been a history of "catches" that weren't actually caught. I would love to see more work on why the MLB is moving in this direction and if there is some statistical reasoning for it.

A potential scenario that could really throw this thing into the national discussion: There is a runner on second and a hit and run is on. The hitter lines a ball to the SS/2B and he shovel throws it to the 2B/SS (respectively) to get the force out before the runner gets back to the bag. This gets really bad if the runner goes on to score, especially in a postseason game.

I'm not sure this is a rule change as much as it is an emphasis on enforcing the rule by the letter of the book. The definition of a catch appears to place the burden on the player to prove that his release of the ball is voluntary, and any evidence to the contrary negates the catch. I may be wrong, but I think this is more of an effect of replay forcing stricter interpretation than it is a rule change.

But ironically the league went out of their way to specifically allow the neighborhood play, an 'unwritten rule', to continue to be allowed. This under the guise of player safety. They should apply the home plate rule to second base if they are concerned about that.

The end result: outs that are not outs and not outs that are outs. Thanks Obama! ;-)

Yeah, while it's hard to say what actually happened, I think that the league made an effort during the offseason to identify every possible gray area in the rules and decide how it would address it. With the neighborhood play, they preferred player safety; with transfers, they put the burden on the receiver. I'd imagine many of these things will be revisited next offseason once the league has a full year of replay—and all of its byproducts—under its belt.